How Small Can Test Tubes Get?

Test tubes can get as small as one-thousandth the diameter of a strand of human hair. In 2009, researchers at the University of Texas Austin set the world record for smallest test tube experiment when they created the microscopic test tube as part of an experiment to see how nano-scale materials react to high temperatures.

A test tube was created from carbon and researchers inserted a germanium thread with a gold made of gold. Since the test tube was so small, it had to be viewed under an electron microscope in order for researchers to observe how the materials melted when exposed to heat, in order to learn more for future material technology.

More about science records:

• The Guinness World Record for longest continuous observational science data is astronomy sunspot data that dates back to 1750 and is still used by astronomers as of 2015.
• In 2004, Oxford University researchers created the world’s smallest test tube as of 2015, which can hold one-billionth of a microliter.
• The largest carbon nanotube is 1,181 feet (360 m) long and was made by Rice University in 2005.